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The Pacific Islands Super Rugby franchise bid has been declined. SANZAAR, the governing body of the competition and of the Rugby Championship has officially rejected expanding the competition.
At present Super Rugby includes teams from five countries – Argentina, Australia, Japan, New Zealand, and South Africa. Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa are the founding unions, Argentina is a SANZAAR member and Japan is not.
The proposal of a Pacific Islands franchise in Super Rugby is nothing new. However unlike prior attempts the 2018 push coms following the tremendous success of the Fiji Drua in Australia’s national competition and outstanding results from Fiji’s test side in the November Internationals.
Fiji would join Samoa and Tonga as the unions represented by the proposed team. While Fiji has been making stores to now be ranked 8th in the world neither Samoa nor Tonga are presently receiving comparable results. In addition, unlike Fiji, both have a high dependency on foreign-born players in their rosters.
The 2019 Super Rugby season will begin on February 15. Argentina’s side, Los Jaguares, will have advantage in round one against the Lions on February 16.
